


The War Was in Color

by AyotliKestrel



Series: Things We Lost in the Fire [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky is heavily featured but not actually present, Conversations, Discussion, Gen, No character or team bashing, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), steve and tony finally talk, steve tells his side of the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 03:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11371386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AyotliKestrel/pseuds/AyotliKestrel
Summary: Six months after Siberia Tony and Steve finally have a very long overdue conversation. It won't be easy, but it's exactly what they needed.





	The War Was in Color

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second version of this story, the first was only up for about twelve hours when I decided to rearrange and rewrite parts of it. I wanted to better emphasize my major points and not focus quite so much on head-canon. 
> 
> I wanted to attempt to tackle the hornets nest that is Steve's mental health. Just to give fair warning this story will deal with his suicidal behaviors in the movies, because no matter how noble they are what they are. Also, as something of a caveat, he will mention symptoms of things like PTSD, but not the disorder because he doesn't have the words for that.

The War Was in Color

The room was modern and expensive, all business, there was a glass pitcher of water in the center of a massive conference table with two glasses face down on either side of it. On the left-hand side of the table sat the first of two men, small and wiry, dark features sharp with intelligence scanned both room and opposing occupant with almost flippant dismissal. The second man took the right-hand side, much larger than the first, blonde and blue eyed, he accepted the other man’s harshness seemingly without notice.

Neither one was in a rush to break the silence, not after so many months of nothing but a note and a battered phone. Battered from all the times Tony looked, and thought, and fought, and let his fraying nerves rein; throwing the damned thing against floor or wall or table. 

Tony would never know it was the fourth such phone Steve had bought, his own nerves severing the tentative connection before it could ever form three times previously. 

That link, for all the good it was doing the now stubbornly silent pair, might have been truly lost if it weren’t for Rhodey. There when it arrived and all too familiar with the genius and his haunted thoughts, the rehabbing man had saved the number himself for the time when Tony was ready to use it. Well, he was ready.

“You told me I could ask for anything.” Tony stated bluntly, not a question.

“Yes, and I meant it. This isn’t exactly what I had imagined though,” Steve admitted, looked around pointedly at the conference room. “What’s this about Tony?” 

“Answers, I want them.” Tony demanded. 

Steve settled a little heavier in his chair, blinking in surprise a few times, “I mean, this isn’t a no, but what can I tell you that you don’t already know?”

“Oh don’t give me that bullshit line Rogers. I don’t know half of what I’d like to, which is probably about a quarter of what I should. Of the whole team, the one we knew the least about was the one who got his name written in the papers almost as much as me.” Tony had a barbed tongue and wasn’t afraid to use it, not now and probably never again.

Steve, well, Steve realized that same thing right around the time Tony did. 

He took a breath to center himself, “Where do you want to start?” 

“How about this one,” And Steve just knew, by the darkness in Tony’s eyes and the danger in his voice, that this question was going to be a test, and a bad one. “Are you in love with him?” 

That made the Super Soldier blink long and slow, “…What?”

“You told the rest of the world to go to hell for him, so I’ll ask again, are you in love with him?” Tony was not backing down on this, snapping the words out angrily with his arms crossed, shoulders hiked up, keeping himself closed off to Steve no matter how personal he was getting.

Steve looked like Tony had just smacked him across the face, he was wide-eyed and flushed, and it was a struggle to find words for a few moments. “Tony, you have no idea. It was never, Buck and I, that wasn’t what it was like.”

“Well then give me an idea?!” He demanded, not making this easy, any chance Steve had of getting off gently had been left in Siberia. Actually no, earlier, that German airport had been the last straw if Tony was being honest with himself. Steve had made his choice then. “Why is he so god damned important?” Different version of the same demand from earlier. 

“He is my home.” Steve found answering hard, the words sticking in his throat. “The good and the bad, all of it, is wrapped up in Bucky. He knows the first book I read, what it sounded like when I had an asthma attack, and what happened the first time I killed someone. He knows exactly why I tried so hard to get into the army when I was nothing but a punk from Brooklyn. We lived together for years after my mother died. You asked me if I loved him, well it is so much more complicated than that.”

“I’m giving you one chance to make me understand Rogers, don’t make me regret it,” Tony snapped.

Steve took a deep breath and looked over Tony carefully, seeing his anger and hurt, knowing it was justified but only guessing what he could do to ease it. “That is a very long story Tony.” And most of it was highly unpleasant, but that went without saying considering where it all ended up. 

“Well I didn’t expect it to be short Capsicle! Just start talking.” If he had to ask one more time, Tony was sure he was going to throttle himself a super soldier. 

To be perfectly honest, Steve didn’t know where to begin. “I guess the right place to start off would be meeting Bucky. His family moved into the apartment building Ma and I lived in when I was about six or so, old enough for school if I was well enough which wasn’t very often. I was ridiculously small at the time, like a stiff breeze could knock me over tiny, and I had a temper so hot Ma swore I’d pick a fight with a bear. I couldn’t see right and I was constantly sick so my ears got plugged up and made me pretty hard of hearing, with lungs that refused to work most of the time. Ma hated letting me out of her sight cause I’d always come home bloodied up and wheezing, hollering like an angry cat about the kid two streets over who stole Sally’s ribbon. When Bucky moved in she finally had someone around to keep an eye on me. Except he was just some wide-eyed farmer’s boy from Indiana who’d never really been in the city before, and he keeps finding his tiny scrap of a neighbor fighting kids twice his size yelling in a language he didn’t have a prayer of understanding. To his credit he just pulled me out of whatever alley I was in, dusted me off, and hauled me back to Ma for a tongue lashing.”

“Hold it, back up,” Tony forced Steve to pause the story. “What was that about the language?”

Steve looked sheepish, like he realized something else had been forgotten about him. “New York was just as much a melting pot of languages then as it is now, I grew up bilingual. I spoke in a mixture of English and my first language which was Gaelic. When I got into all those tussles I would deliberately switch to pure Gaelic to goad my opponents. It was to my advantage if they didn’t know I could understand far more English than I spoke. I was really young then, and I didn’t completely lose my accent until the USO coached it out of my voice.”

“Did you start those fights?” Fair question all considered. 

Steve thought about it, “That’s a little complicated. I always waited until there was something obviously wrong going on before I got involved, but I hate bullies and took great pleasure in telling them so. I can’t say I never goaded anyone into fighting, but I will add that if I was doing that I felt there was a good reason for it. I will admit even the times I wasn’t actively involved in starting the fight I didn’t really try to stop it from happening either.” 

“No shit.” Yeah, Steve walked into that one, and Tony was in no way ready to not be mad yet, so it just made him irritated. “Have you ever in your life walked away from a fight?” 

Steve looked away, “Once. I put a plane into the arctic and thought my fight was over. I’m not sure that counts though, here it turns out I didn’t so much end the fight as save it for later, like banking hot coals.”

Tony felt the bottom leave his stomach, but kept himself closed, he was far too shattered to open himself up so easily. “Is that what all this has felt like to you? Just one long pause?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose, and really, how bad had things gotten if a super soldier could get a tension headache? “It was supposed to be over, Bucky, me, the Red Skull, even the Tesseract; all buried and gone. Let humanity fight for the future they deserve and stop leaving it in the hands of mad men with alien power and broken serums. Then I wake up, and everything good about the era I knew was either gone or dying and everything bad is just as strong as I remember. My world was gone Tony, gone. All of it. Except for Hydra. Except for the Tesseract. Except for Zola. My first mission after the ice was fighting Loki, think about that for a moment, the only information I had about the people around me was second hand from SHIELD and we now know they were rotten from the inside out, how many ways did they find to change my mind, make me believe things I had no right to believe? And I had to somehow learn to coordinate with this brand-new team against the very thing I killed myself to spare humanity from.”

“And here I thought it was the plane full of missiles.” Tony quipped when he felt his throat constricting. It was his defense against letting anyone past the emotional barricades he set up to protect himself, no matter how much he might want to in the moment he wouldn’t let himself forgot what made him want to put up those walls in the first place. 

“Tony please don’t deflect this. Be angry, hell hit me if you want, I deserve it. Ask me whatever you want to know, but don’t turn this into something less than it is.” Steve spoke quietly, needing this if he was ever going to get through everything that needed to be said. Anger was rational, it was understandable, but to hear the sneer and the dismissal was too much to bear and keep talking at the same time.

“Do you even know what therapy IS?” Tony couldn’t help himself, he had to ask.

“I do now.” Steve explained quietly. “After I met Sam and listened to what he did at the VA I did some research. Right after I got out of the ice? No. It existed in my time, but only in the very early stages and you had to have a lot of time and money to access it, none of which I had.” 

“SHIELD didn’t try to…” Tony trailed off as Steve grew visibly disturbed. 

“I think they did, I mean I was sent to a couple sessions with this one plainclothes agent for awhile, but no one bothered to explain why I was there or what was expected; anything. To me it was just another endless set of debriefings. Either they really didn’t get that I had no idea what was going on and thought I enjoyed wasting time, or they were a Hydra plant.” The shudder running down Steve’s spine was involuntary. With the reveal it was unsettling to all of them to realize how many seemingly innocuous interactions may have been influenced by the sleeper group.

“Yeah well eight legged rhododendrons or not, we got off track. Keep talking about the fish out of water farmer’s boy and the shrimp with a death wish.” Tony waved him on, bringing him back to the topic at hand and away from thoughts of Hydra, at least for the moment. 

“Here’s something interesting, I said earlier that Bucky knew the first book I read, well that’s because he taught me how to read.” Steve admitted. “I was too sick for school most of the time, and it wasn’t that my Ma couldn’t read herself, she was fluently bilingual, but she was a nurse on a TB ward and her shifts were so long by the time she got home she dropped right off to sleep so she didn’t have time to teach me. Bucky though, he would come over every day Ma would let him -so long as I wasn’t contagious- with his primers and his patience. It kept me in bed where I was supposed to be, and helped him understand more than one out of every five words I said.”

“So, if Mr. Freeze was so out of his depth originally why did he keep pulling what amounts to a rabid chihuahua out of trouble?” Tony may or may not be falling into the trap of the story telling, it was growing on him despite his anger. 

Steve had to roll his eyes at the reference Tony couldn’t resist, once again it was one he hadn’t gotten to yet but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what the other man was aiming for in going there. “I might have been an only child growing up, but Bucky was not. He was a big brother several times over. There were times that meant he pulled you out of a scrape, other times it meant he put you in a headlock until you cried for mercy. Sometimes both at the same time depending on why exactly he was pulling you out of said scrape.” 

“Speaking of pulling people out of scrapes,” And with that, Steve knew Tony wasn’t letting this conversation fall into any semblance of humor, not yet. “If your little buddy wasn’t one of the four hundred captured soldiers, would you have gone after them?”

“No.” Steve answered so quickly and so honestly that Tony was thrown for a loop, struck speechless until the super solider raised a hand to stall his racing thoughts. “I’m being honest. I’d like to think I’d have gone anyway if I had known there were soldiers in need Bucky or not, but Tony, you’re right to accuse me because if it weren’t for Bucky being there I know I would not have rescued those men. If I hadn’t been looking for him I would never have even known there were missing men behind enemy lines that needed to be rescued, or been so tenacious in finding out there wasn’t a plan in place to bring them home besides me disobeying orders. At the very least it would have still had to be Bucky’s unit, the 107th, that I performed for. It was hearing who they were that made me go to the commanding officer that day, who just happened to be one of the supervisors for project Rebirth so I knew he’d talk to me if I kept badgering him for intel.”

“You weren’t a very good solider, were you?” Tony realized, not mentally ready to deal with Steve owning up to his accusations just yet. 

Steve didn’t bother to hide his grin, “Not in the slightest. That commanding officer was the one who threw a dummy grenade at us in boot camp to prove why I shouldn’t be the one chosen for the serum test. He told Erskine flat out he assumed all I was to him was a curiosity, like a pet gerbil. When I did pass his test but Erskine died and we realized there would only ever be one successful super solider Captain America was fully intended to be a showman. I was even given acting lessons by the USO for those silly propaganda films not to mention the tour, and when I rescued those men the army decided to go along with the idea. Captain America was the coat of bright paint over a dark and ugly subject. Me, I was always a fighter, but was more of a brawler than I ever was a solider. I never had a problem following the rules when they made sense, but I was more than willing to challenge authority when they didn’t. My five forged enlistment cards are testament to that and its why Erskine chose me over the others. I wasn’t afraid of a fight, but I chose my battles differently. I did not know to find cover and protect my flanks, I ran toward the grenade and protected my team

Steve’s smile faded and it was his turn to darken the conversation. “The USO used me as a dancing monkey, and the army wasn’t a whole lot better. The Howling Commandos were the best at what we did, but we were the poster boys of war. It was our job to make killing look good, even easy, if not fun. Back home never saw the nightmares, the twitching hands, the screaming in our sleep. You saw what I wore, it was part of the image, but there was a reason for that flashy image. I was a target for the gunfire so my Howlers wouldn’t get hit and Bucky could get shots off from his Sniper’s nest. I was a literal shield for them. I’ve had I don’t know how many bullets dug out of me in the middle of a thunder storm with nothing but leather between my teeth and a set of tweezers. Painkillers don’t work and I wouldn’t let them waste antiseptic on me when my healing would take care of it. It usually had to be Bucky that fished the bullets out because he had the steadiest hands and was used to my yowling. I healed too fast to get back to camp and if the pain was bad when the bullet wound was fresh, it was a thousand times worse if it healed over and a piece got left behind. I will never regret that choice though, because no matter how many high-risk operations we ran the only one who ever got shot was me. Even gathering my team in the first place, I disobeyed orders and snuck across enemy lines to do it. The very first time Captain America ever actually used his strength was completely unsanctioned by anyone in command.”

“There is a fine line between noble self-sacrifice and suicide,” Tony observed bluntly, “Is this what lead to our first meeting? Because that was one damn strong first opinion.”

Steve actually winced, “Tony, I’m hopeless at reading people outside of a battlefield. Always have been. It has a lot to do with my senses being so different before the serum. I never learned to properly read body language or hear changes in vocal tones. When I met you, I had to hit the ground running off nothing but twenty odd years of press briefings and an inch-thick SHIELD file. I had met so many men drunk on their own power during the war I made a judgement call, but it was wrong, it only took me five minutes of actually working with you to realize it and I’m sorry I didn’t notice in all the rush of handling the Chitauri we never talked about it.” 

Tony found himself not really able to disagree. He’d read his own SHIELD file, it had evolved over time, but before the Chitauri incident it had not been a pretty picture. It was basically stamped in large red letters with not a team player, even with Natasha’s adjustments. With that and the press coverage surrounding his occasionally spectacularly public breakdowns over the Palladium poisoning it was no wonder Steve had built up the wrong first impression. Even the people that knew him personally hadn’t known what in the hell had gotten into him. That did not mean he was ready to let up on Steve, not by a long shot, “How do you know you are not the one drunk on power?”

“I have no idea,” Steve admitted ruefully. “I didn’t plan to end up this way. I wasn’t trying to end up in command or at the top. I just wanted him safe, my team free, and people like Wanda to have a choice.” 

“Oh I think this issue started long before Germany or Siberia,” And didn’t that hurt like a bitch, the wounds were still fresh even six months later. “You want to tell me exactly why the Accords scared you so god damn much?”

“It wasn’t the Accords themselves.” Steve muttered, only to repeat himself louder when it looked like Tony might really walk out on him. “Contracts and rules don’t scare me, too many layers of oversight do, even more so now.”

“Are you going to elaborate, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?” Tony threatened.

“No, I’ll explain, it’s just hard to find the right words.” Steve stuttered his way through. “I don’t mind signing a contract between equals, I felt that way about the Avengers. To me that kind of contract is about setting up rules for respecting each other, which is definitely something we could all use a little more of. It’s just. Every time someone has had more control over where I go and how I use my strength than I do myself, it has been taken advantage of.”

“Where is this coming from?” Tony was kind of seeing a point somewhere in there, but Steve needed to do a better job of making it before he was willing to accept it. 

“Tony, when I went to rescue those four hundred POWs I only had to dodge a handful of senior officers and my own supervisor on the USO tour, but I still had to dodge them and if it wasn’t for Peggy and Howard I wouldn’t have been able to do it Serum or not. The original plan for freeing those men was to win the war. In that situation, the choices of the few changed the lives of four hundred. When we were told the Accords would be overseen by a panel from one hundred and seventeen countries all I could see was the soot and blood covered faces of those prisoners. I never said in any of our arguments we didn’t need to plan or discuss where we took the team, I was only saying it should be in our own hands. If it is our actions causing the consequences then it is our responsibility to decide where and how we use our strength. Our team, our decision, our guilt.” Steve was doing his best to put into words something he had never been able to vocalize. “I am fully aware we could still make mistakes, but so could a panel of nations, I’d just rather the mistakes I make be my own. I tried working for SHIELD, even after learning they were using that damn tesseract to make weapons they had no business making. I chose to try creating a life here and set myself up to be front and center in discovering they were the nesting ground for Hydra, then I helped destroy them and what little stability I had managed to build in this century with it. So yeah, I’m a little reluctant to hand myself over to yet another organization saying they know what’s best for everyone.” 

“But aren’t you, by the very nature of your argument, saying the same thing? That you know what’s best.” Tony argued. 

Steve huffed and scrubbed at his tense neck. “I’m actually saying I have no idea what the best thing is for everyone, as proven when I got so many good people arrested for my sake. I’m saying we should be listening to people, not governments, they are the ones hurting and suffering. I want to hear what we all think, as a team, we have assassins and soldiers and geniuses and spies, surely the one thing we can all learn how to do is listen?” 

“Can’t listen to something you don’t have the balls to say,” Tony’s voice was low and angry, and Steve knew he just stepped on a nerve. Tony didn’t speak for a long time, taking a moment to collect himself, and once he felt he was able to think and react in tune with himself again and not a moment before he spoke again. “Why the fuck are you the only exception on Frosty the Bionic Snowman’s kill list?”

The nuances of the reference kind of went over his head, but Steve knew enough about Tony to know what he was saying. “I’m not,” He tried to protest, only to be interrupted.

“Bullshit!” Tony shouted. “The only man that’s lived after he’s been ordered to kill is you, the only one. He’s gone on the defensive before and left a trail of bodies without caring if he finished the job or not; but he defied direct orders for you. How? Why you and not others?” 

It clicked. It should have been sooner, and Steve was kicking himself that it wasn’t. “You want to know why I’m alive and Howard isn’t?” His voice was as low and as gentle as he could make it. Not coddling, he knew better, but trying his best not to make it worse. 

Tony closed-up like a rock, cold and hard, unyielding emotionally and physically. Steve knew better than to try and touch him or offer to shield the blow; not answering this question was not an option or at least a really really fucking bad one. “Tony, I’m not actually sure Howard and Bucky ever met in person.” Steve admitted slowly, Tony not showing any signs of listening and forcing Steve to take it on faith he was. “Howard was in his lab the majority of the time, I barely saw him myself let alone any of the commandos. Bucky saw Howard at one of his expos and there might have been a couple quick things here or there during the war, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours put together. That night, it wasn’t enough, when he’s the Soldier he doesn’t even remember his OWN name.” 

Tony was quiet for a very long time, a worrying long time, if you weren’t used to bad news, long nights, and lapsing silences. “According to dear old dad, they were best friends.” Tony drawled, distancing himself from the words. 

“Well it wasn’t like they were enemies or anything,” Steve was choosing his words carefully, he didn’t want to lie but didn’t want Tony to hurt, and this was all a mess. “Howard wasn’t on the front lines like the Howling Commandos were, at least not if the top brass knew about it. Especially after project Rebirth and then Azzano. They’d already lost Erskine and weren’t willing to risk Howard’s mind next. A scientist working in a heavily classified bunker lab isn’t going to be talking to field soldiers stuck in middle of nowhere Europe very often. The most contact I had with him was in the beginning, when Captain America was still being created and Bucky and the others were pulling themselves together from being captives. Bucky might have met him during a time I was too busy to notice, but I was pretty hyperaware of him after getting him out of the Hydra camp so I doubt it. There’s something else too. You asked me why I was the only exception for the Winter Soldier? Well, I’m not sure how much of that was my doing, and please Tony, hear me out, because he put three bullets in me before it was all over.” 

“I’m listening,” That was the best Steve was going to get, and he knew it.

“I think the reason Bucky started breaking his programing wasn’t me, it was Hydra making a mistake.” Steve articulated very carefully, seeing Tony seize up into the tight defensive posture again but not interrupting. “Natasha described the Winter Soldier as a ghost story even other assassins and spies weren’t entirely sure was real. If he was that good at stealth and covering his own tracks, and even in the army Buck was our sniper so specialized in distance fighting, why then would he be used in a direct frontal assault in broad daylight in full riot gear? His handlers in DC were not using him like the assassin he was brainwashed to be, they were using him like he was an actual soldier, just one with skills and tactics roughly equivalent to an armored platoon. I think it was Hydra changing the way the Winter Soldier worked to something closer to what Bucky was like in his old life, and bringing those memories closer after seventy years of torture and brain washing, that let anything I might have done get through to him.”

“Why would Hydra make such a stupid mistake?” Tony seemed almost insulted on their behalf, mostly because they had all been fooled by the terrorist organization slumbering within SHIELD. 

“We know from the files that he was not always with the same people. Best guess would be a new handler, someone not practiced in giving the Soldier orders.” Steve estimated. “You and I both know how easy it is to get caught up in an image, we helped to craft our own from the ground up. If the new people taking over the reins on the Winter Soldier took the name literally it is easy to give the wrong orders. That name was meant to mock where he came from, not guide how he was used. Just ask Natasha or Clint what it is like trying to assassinate someone once your face is known and you’ll know what kind of mistake Hydra made.” 

Tony had to point it out, hating to give Hydra credit, but he couldn’t leave it unsaid, “They did mask him when they sent him to fight in DC, and were smart enough to use the kind that covers the jaw and mouth rather than the vigilante style cheekbone number that pretty much does shit to hide someone from facial recognition software.” 

“I will give you that one, but the fastening wasn’t as strong as the mask itself, it came off with one good hit against the ground. It wasn’t like I broke it off with the shield or anything. A normal bullet or good knife could have gotten it off just as easily if someone got the right spot. It didn’t have to be me fighting him to break that mask off.” Steve analyzed. “Hydra took some precautions, but overall they were gambling with his identity long before it was clear their cover had been blown.” 

Tony swallowed heavily, “What was it like fighting him that day?” A question no one had asked, for too many reasons to count. 

Steve let a slow sad smile spread over his face, “Honestly that was the kind of fight I live for. I’m not made for sitting still and being calm. I LIKE to fight, I just prefer it being justified. Finding out who was under that mask made me feel like I couldn’t breathe properly, and I had my wind knocked out of me again when I discovered just what all they’ve done to him. My opponents have always had a choice, no matter whether I was that little scrap yelling in Gaelic or picking up the shield and heading to war. They took Bucky’s choices away from him and it made me sick to realize I still enjoyed that fight even knowing he didn’t have a say in it, I hated myself for that.” 

“And Siberia, what about then?” Tony couldn’t help himself, he wanted to lock the words up forever and carry on ignoring them; but they spilled out like vomit after too much scotch. 

“I deserved every punch,” Steve accepted outright. “From the moment that mask fell off in DC I was fixated on Bucky, and I failed to protect you. If all you did was come after me I would have let you do whatever you needed, but I just couldn’t let you take it out on him. I didn’t want to fight you Tony, but you wouldn’t let us go any other way. I knew if I could disable the suit we could get away. God Tony, it felt like I was slamming the shield through your fucking heart.” Steve’s whole body was trembling and there were tears in his eyes, Tony feeling himself start to hyperventilate at the memory. 

Tony felt like he might actually throw up, “You know that guy who taught you to read when you were kids, that dug bullets out of you during the war; he’s probably never coming back right? He died in a Hydra lab Hell only knows how long ago.”

“I know,” Steve’s voice was exhausted and overwhelmed. “God help me, I’ve known that since DC. This Bucky though, he was broken and tired and fighting so hard to remember. I want to help him find who he is in this lifetime, just like he kept pulling a bloodied up little punk out of alleys in Brooklyn. We made a promise Tony, to the end of the line, and it isn’t over for us yet. It’s just my turn to save him.”

Tony just felt so tired, drained of any energy he had to tackle this with quips or sarcasm. There was silence between the two of them for a very long time, a lot to think over and digest. Until at last Tony stated abruptly, “Hydra killed my parents.” It wasn’t forgiveness, not quite, but it was a start and Steve’s tired smile showed he understood.

“Nothing I say right now is going to make what happened that day in Siberia right. I am not trying to. I made mistakes, and I’m probably going to make more, but I don’t want to lose anything else good in my life. I’m sorry Tony, I really am.” And for the first time, Tony believed him. 

He swallowed hard and made an offer with the last of his strength, “How about this time you actually come home from the war?” 

Steve’s shoulders and spine slumped in boneless relief, “Sounds good to me.”


End file.
